Sound was the first thing to return to the young woman who laid still. She heard the faint sound of beeping and slight snoring. With extreme effort she forced her eyes open, looking to see where the snoring came from. Next to her bed sat a man. He looked so familiar. She tried to concentrate to remember his name, but it seemed to escape her despite her efforts. Thats when she realized she didn't remember her name. Panic flooded her system. As she tried desperately to get up she heard a shriek from the doorway.
"Rory!" The woman shrieked, slowly Rory's memory started to sneak back.
"Mom?" Rory croaked. Her voice sounded awful. Her throat was so dry she could barely get the word out. The snoring man had snapped awake, Luke..what was he doing here?
"Hey kid" he said with a relieved smile. Lorelai was at her side now. Hugging her far too tight, Rory coughed as she gasped for air. Quickly her mother released her grasp.
"Oops I'm so sorry! I just never thought you'd...oh Rory everything is going to be okay now." She cuddled her very confused daughter, Rory hoarsely asked the a question.
"Did I miss the first day?" Lorelai looked at her with confusion.
"The first day of what?" her mother asked.
"High school." Rory answered her mother. Horrified looks greeted her response.
"Rory...You graduated from high school over four years ago."
Rory walked up the steps with Lorelai to their home. Luke was waiting for them inside and opened the door welcoming them in.
"Mom...I mean I'm glad to see him and everything...but what is Luke doing here?" She whispered. Lorelai breathed in deeply.
"Well...for now just pretend he's the chauffeur...a really red-neck looking chauffeur..." Lorelai said with a smile.
"But Mom...Chauffeurs don't have their pictures hanging on the wall." Rory pointed to the picture on the wall, she recognized her mom, Luke, someone who looked an awful lot like her and then another teenage girl with dark curly hair. Lorelai just nervously laughed and hurried Rory along to her room. Except it wasn't her room. It was totally different. Different paint, a different bed frame, and the pictures that scattered the walls just confused her further.
"The doctors said that being home would help bring back the memories." Luke muttered to Lorelai.
"Shh! It isn't going to just happen!" She scolded him. Rory turned around and saw Lukes hand intertwined with her mothers.
"Wait...are you two together?" Rory spluttered out.
"Thats my cue." Luke said and quickly left the room, Rory could hear him sneak out the back door. Rory looked expectantly at her mother.
"uhh...Surprise!" Lorelai finally said. That's about the time that Rory fainted.
Three weeks later, very little had returned. Rory remembered everything up to the first day of grade nine. Leaving seven years of her life a black hole that she had no recollection of. She remembered Stars Hollow. She remembered Lane and Sookie, though the fact that Sookie was married to Jackson and that they had three kids and that Lane had twins was an extreme adjustment. With the help of her Mother and Grandmother, which was of course another big shocker, Rory was piecing together her lost seven years. Apparently she had left Stars Hollow High, attended Chilton Prep, and gone onto Yale, which of course bewildered her because she had always wanted to go to Harvard. She had then graduated from Yale and had become a journalist. The last her mother had heard she was working for an online magazine following the presidential campaign. Shortly following that Rory had been in a car crash. She had been transferred to the hospital closest to her family where she had been in a coma for three weeks. Which brought her to where she was now.
She had lost seven years, but gained a stepfather, a step-sister, a half-sister, and apparently several ex-boyfriends. Living with Luke came easy. It beat the food she was used to eating in the morning and she had always loved him. She hadn't met her step-sister April yet, and while her father Christopher had stopped by he didn't bring her sister Gigi with him. The missing hole in her life seemed to mock her and she tried harder and harder to remember who she was which just left her with less and less.
Finally she asked Lorelai one day a favor.
"Mom...I have an idea." She announced.
"Ooh! Does is involved popcorn and lame movies?" Her Mom responded, Rory laughed.
"Not quite. I want to talk to those guys you mentioned." She explained.
"I have a feeling your not talking about the backstreet boys." Lorelai mused. Rory just looked at her expectantly.
"Okay! But if they blow of Stars Hollow with all their little man-fights its not my fault!" She warned.
"How bad can it be?" Rory asked.
"Oh honey, just you wait and see."
She was nervous. She was about to meet one of her ex-boyfriends...that she didn't remember. The doorbell rang. Her heart skipped a beat. She heard Luke go and answer the door. She listened to the stiff greeting.
"Luke." The boy at the door spoke with a very curt tone.
"Dean." Luke replied gruffly. She wondered what had happened there.
"Rory! Your...Dean is here!" Luke awkwardly hollered. Rory stepped out of her room into the hall. That was when she first saw him. The first thought that went through her mind was whoa. He was tall. Like really tall. His brown hair was long for a mans, coming past his chin. His eyes were hazel. He smiled at her. It was the most beautiful smile she had ever seen in her life. Luke looked back and forth and them, looked like he was going to say something seemed to decided against it and went out the front door that Dean had just come in through.
"Hey Rory, long time no see." Dean's voice sounded like the voice from an actor in a chick-flick. It was baritone sounding and smooth. Everything about this guy made her flustered. How had she ever dated him!? He was gorgeous, and in the forty-five seconds she had spent with him he was completely and utterly charming.
"Hi." She finally managed to get out of her mouth. He smiled and motioned to the couch. Rory was glad for suggestion because she felt like she might just fall over drooling looking at him.
"So Lorelai explained to me whats happening. I thought we could go somewhere to see if it makes you remember anything, that okay with you?" He asked. Rory nodded, she probably would say yes to anything he said right now. She tried to remind herself that she wasn't fourteen. She was twenty-three, she needed to act like it. Suddenly Dean laughed.
"What?" Rory asked, flustered.
"Nothing, you just really remind me of how you used to be, its nice." He assured me. I relaxed slightly. I realized that he had met me first when I was only fifteen so that I probably a flashback for him, now if only I could see the flashback too. He stood up and offered his hand to me, I hesitated at first but put my hand into his.